I mind one time... July 4 in the mid 80s... I was camped next to the Nepisiguit at Popple Depot and there was a thick frost. Another time, August 10. The Nepisiguit runs out of some fairly big Appalachians and is spring fed nearby so the fishing was good. There is a wardens' camp opposite the (then) primative 'campgound'. I used to get up at dawn and catch trout for brekky, wait until the wardens went up the road to do some wardening and get back to fishing. I could only stay in the river 15 to 20 minutes as my legs would be so numb that it was hard to walk. By noon, it would be so hot that skeeters couldn't fly.

Looks like we might get a frost overnight tonight. I have been trying to get to the feed store to buy my bedding plants for tomatoes (a variety they never sell as seed, and I forget to mail order early enough). I'll put them in the greenhouse for a couple of days and plant after work later in the week. Several people have referred to this as our "Easter frost," something that happens often enough that the old-time gardeners don't plant to tenderest of plants until after Easter.

Indeed, A. Forecast says 17C today. Of course, that's at the airport. Probably close in on 20C in town. The rain has passed and it's sunny by times now. Time to plant some maters in my window tray as the June full moon is on the 12. Gramps used to say to beware frost until 3 days after June Moon.

FIVE legs on at triangular table? My triangular table has but 3 legs, and drop leaves that can make it circular or a circle with one or more leaves dropped -- heart-shaped if one leaf is dropped and two up.

I've spent the last two days and some making a wee triangular corner bench for BBW, as he likes to slip out onto the stoep by the front door in the wee mornig hours and read her books. Hitherto she does this just perched on the one-step down tot he driveway, but I dshall have her sitting up in style and looking dandy.

The framework is all done except for two strengthening pieces that need to be mortised between the legs, tricky on a 45 degree angle. But I am please with it so far; nearly plumb, level or square, pick any two.

Right now it seems like outhouse therapy because any "problems" caused by the Percocet (an opiate) has worn off today. We need to buy more TP* and the water/sewer bill is going to go way up next billing cycle.

Early condoms were tied on with a ribbon. They were often made of linen, sometimes of gut. You may ask how I know this and I will answer, "Librarians know everything" for I don't discuss the indiscretions of my youth.

I only have a moment. I'm in a "safe cave" in Afghani****, having parachuted in yesterday. Obviously I can't tell you where I am or what I'm doing except that involves Operation Banjos For The Taliban and its related action, Operation Accordions For Al-Queda. With luck these will end the violence across the Near and Middle East, making them as peaceful as Poland.

At 1.5# per week, it will take until June 20 to attain my summer weight goal. Arthritis SUCKS! I did 4 laps on Tuesday, 6 laps on Wednesday and 8 laps last night. Nearly fell a half dozen times on the last three laps last night as I lost most of the control of my left leg from the knee down. Ten laps = 2.5 km. I was doing at least 10 km per day until March 2013. I got a new 'kick in the ass' Tuesday morn at the doc's during my three month 'checkup'. He offered to give me a prescription for pain killers and I said "No thank you. I figure, make it rEEEally hurt and then, when it subsides, it won't seem as bad." I did say to him that I wouldn't refuse a prescription for that there medical Mary-do-you-wanna. He didn't get the joke. He's from Quebec, eh.

In case you haven't heard 'Birmingham', I wanted to provide a link to the best version I have seen. I found it but the darn thing won't play the video properly - only the audio. The vid is good. It's YT title is 'Amanda Marshall - Birmingham - Live'.

It is of note to mention that in that song, performed live, there is an 'interlude' during which Amanda departs from the studio version and goes into a 'song within a song'. Perhaps you have heard of Nelly Furtado who won a Grammy for Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Her song that won that Grammy was based on that 'song within a song'.

Trivia? Yes. Trivial? No. Marshall is a treasure.

Now, if ya wanna delve further into female Canuck rockers, there are many. I know youse have heard some of the more 'mainstream' but there may be some you have not heard of. SRS... sorry, but, I gotta give you some SASS!

Yeah, it's rock. But... youse all got 'stop'.

Must be the coming of spring and the fact that I just can't sleep at night plus the fact that rock is better on the tunes for spring cleaning.

Her body of work is precious. Her 'Birmingham' was a breakout for battered women's rights in Canada. Damn fine tune. As was the tune above... made a lot of young ladies (and gents) think twice about 'partay'. Mysterious ways? Yeah. She's cool in my books.

Every now and then, you come up with a gem, friend Rapparee, which leads me to forgive all your peccadilloes, sins, offenses, bloviations and exaggerations up to that point in time (in the comfortable and sure knowledge there will be a plentiful supply forthcoming in the future.)

Today, with the expression "gestalt of the putrid", you have bravely earned another such respite from renewable censure and chronic disapprobation.

Gestalt of the Putrid!!

Amos, were I to comment on the song it would remove some of my enjoyment of it. Having been an English Lit major I can (and sometimes do) end up over-analyzing that which should rather be grasped as a gestalt of the beautiful.

Take our old friend Shame McBride -- a more pungent example of the gestalt of the putrid would be difficult to find, much less grasp.

Hmmm... I gotta bake more cookies. Betty Crocker yellow cake mix, eggs, oil and a can of pumkin pie mix supposedly makes great pumpkin muffies. Apparently, Carole (old high school chum that FB posts a lot of recipes, quilting stuff and such) hasn't priced a can of the stuff lately. Darned expensive muffies!

AW, c'mon, youse guys! One of the loveliest songs ever to flow across our watery midnight borders, handed to you on silver notes by the god-graced pale and lovely-fingered hands of La Donna de Toda Musica her own self, and you have only comments on cookies and pickles?

They say that at night he did nothing but cry, they say he didn't eat he did nothing but drink. They swear that the very sky (heavens) 1. trembled on hearing his weeping, how he suffered for her, that even in his death, he went calling her

They say that, very early in the morning a sad dove goes to sing at the empty small house with its little doors open wide; they swear that that dove is nothing other than his soul, still waiting for the return of the il-fated woman.